Consumers have utilized a number of cosmetic and personal care compositions to enhance and/or modify the appearance of keratin fibers, such as the hair. One popular modification is impartation of an artificial color on the hair using a chemical dye. For example, the hair may be treated using a direct dye or an oxidative dye, which is also known as a “permanent” hair dye, to obtain a desired color.
It is known in the art that artificial hair colors, particularly red tones, obtained by treating hair with chemical dyes rapidly fade with repeat shampooing and washing. The chemical dyes used to impart color on the hair tend to increase the porosity of the keratin fibers of the hair. The increased porosity provides an increased surface area and allows an increased flow of fluids (e.g., water) through the fibers of the hair and thus, increases the rate at which molecules of the chemical dyes are leached from the hair. Artificially colored hair may exhibit substantial color fading after only a few washings. It has been shown that more than 20% of the artificial hair color can be lost during the first five washes.
Recent advances to enhance color retention and/or reduce color fading of artificially colored hair have included the use of color-protecting agents. These color-protecting agents may include mild surfactants, cationic conditioning agents, aminofunctional silicones, ultraviolet absorbers, starches or sugar surfactants, to name a few. A significant improvement over these conventional approaches is disclosed in Avon Products' U.S. Patent Pub. 2009/0274640 which is directed to improving color-retention in artificially colored hair using a combination of a silicone polyurethane polymer, a film-forming ester, and fluorosilicone.
Despite the advances for color-protecting agents, there remains a need in the art for compositions and methods for reducing color fading of artificially colored hair. It is therefore an object of the invention to provide compositions and methods for improving retention of color in artificially colored hair.